Sonntag, Oktober 08, 2006

JIANG JIAN HUA - THE EARTH (1997)Chinese Traditional, MP3 @ 224

Recorded in Beijing, the first international release and alandmark recording by world renowned Chinese erhu player JiangJian Hua. A truly exceptional artist whose finesse and skillhas moved and astonished top classical conductors andmusicians.

Jiang Jian Hua was born into a musical family in 1961 inShanghai. Her uncle, Tang Chujen Gui, is a master player ofthe erhu and from a very young age she studied under him.At the age of 12 she entered the "Central Conservatory of Musicin China" in Beijing where she remained until she was 22,turning from a student into a professor. When she was 14 yearsold the Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa was visiting theConservatory for listening to classical chinese music. Despiteher age she was selected to perform for Ozawa. Ozawa, althoughof Japanese parentage was born in Manchuria China, was verytouched by the music of his birthplace and the emotionalsensitivity of her playing. At the same age she also joinedthat Shanghai Symphony Orchestra on their tour to Australia,New Zealand and Hong Kong.Another turning point in her life occurred in November 1976,when one of the world's premier orchestras, the BerlinPhilharmonic, under Herbert Von Karajan, visited China for thefirst time. After their concert she performed for the orchestraat a party, she played one of the most difficult classical piecesfor violin, Pablo de Sarasate's Gypsy piece "Zigeunerweisen" andat the end of the performance, the principle violinist wascompletely astonished by her technical dexterity and her newarrangement to suit the two stringed erhu. He invited her toBerlin to learn the violin which she decided not to do, but tocontinue playing the erhu.In 1988, the Berlin Philharmonic invited her again to Berlin,to play an erhu concerto with the full orchestra, conducted bySeiji Ozawa. Herbert Von Karajan, was sick at that time, but wasmuch looking forward to hearing this very special performance.Sadly Karajan died on the same day and the whole performanceturned into a tribute for the conductor.Jiang Jian Hua is also the person who performed the erhu onRyuichi Sakamoto's soundtrack to Bernardo Bertolucci's movie"The Last Emperor" in 1987. Her haunting improvisation passageswere the soundtracks most memorable moments.

The performances on this album were made with the China BroadcastChinese National Orchestra conducted by Wu Hou Yuan and theYouth Chinese Music Ensemble of Central Conservatory of Music inChina conducted by Wang Fu Jian. Recorded in March 1996 atChina Record, 2nd Studio in Beijing.

Rice Music is Masami Tsuchiya's (ex-Ippu Do) debut solo album.A multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, bass, drums,synthesizers, percussion, koto, yokin and sings on this album.The cover might be misleading because Masami is male.(In a stewardess costume ?) But anyway this kind of look wasn'tstrange in the 80's. Just remember David Sylvian's Wave band"Japan" whose members Mick Karn (bass) and Steve Jansen (drums)appear as guest musicians on this record. Just as Bill Nelson(guitars) and Percy Jones (bass). Also remarkable: a young RyuichiSakamoto performing all instruments (besides the guitars, whichis played by Masami himself) on the track "Kafka".This album has lots of traditional Japanese elements mixed withelectronics.The lyrics are mainly in Japanese, but also some english passagesor even songs.Oh and Masami Tsuchiya is not to be confused with the person ofthe same name, who was sentenced to death due his role in the Saringas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.Masami Tsuchiyapw:radiowaves66

Kovács Kati's third album, on which she is backed by Locomotiv GT.The songs were penned by LGT members, the lyrics are by Adamis Anna.If you liked the LGT albums I posted here before then youshould check this one out as well.Three of the tracks were laterre-recorded by LGT on their albums.Kovács Kati 1973pw:radiowaves66